Orphan Jack “Nimble” Nottingham – is a wily, street-smart kid who has survived on his own for a very long time – well, aside from his dog Winnie. But when his accident-prone accomplice Mouse extinguishes an ancient candle in a blitzed out basement – Nimble quickly realizes that it wasn’t an ordinary candle, and it should have remained lit. For fans of Stranger Things, Serafina and the Black Cloak and The Goonies!
THE DARK TIMES OF NIMBLE NOTTINGHAM
by Ryan James Black
Penguin, September 2025
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)
Somewhere beneath London, a candle has burned for centuries.
It’s World War II, and Jack “Nimble” Nottingham sets out to scavenge the bombed-out ruins of Gravenhurst, a spooky estate rumored to be so haunted that not even the Dead End Kids dare go near it. Inside, Nim hopes to find unspoiled food, flea-free blankets, and maybe even a spot of oil for his lantern. Instead, he discovers a hidden alchemist’s laboratory, and a candle locked away in its vault, impossibly still lit. That is, until accident-prone Mouse, who Nim reluctantly allows to tag along, bumps into it, extinguishing the wick and releasing the Aether, a predatory shadow trapped in Gravenhurst’s basement for the past three hundred years.
Nim and Mouse narrowly escape the Aether, but the Aether escapes Gravenhurst, free now to hungrily hunt the London streets for souls…especially Nim’s own. As everyone around Nim, including his faithful dog Winnie, comes under attack, he seeks answers from the mysterious owner of Gravenhurst, Allister Evermoor—either Nim’s most formidable opponent, or his only chance at solving a mystery that reaches back across generations, to another dark chapter of the city’s history.
Now, Nim will have to decide who to trust as he works to defeat the Aether once and for all. One thing is for certain: even as brave nurses and soldiers marshal their resources against England’s enemies, the Blitz blackouts are aiding a threat much closer to home. A Shadow is closing in, and it’s going to take fire starters, pickpockets, vandals, and bullies coming together to stand against it. Because if Nim can’t find a way to vanquish the Aether, it won’t stop at London… it will darken the world.
Ryan James Black is an Author Mentor Match mentee who hails from Manitoba, Canada. He’s a husband, father, and self-described “Weirdo” and “Tamer of the Wilds,” who brings both heart and admirable work ethic to his creative vocation. This is his debut novel.
True love never dies. It just stays buried.
Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bona fide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward, Rabbit. On the road to Burden County, they’re joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure – but no sense of purpose – and a recently widowed schoolteacher with nothing left to lose. As their posse grows, so too does the danger. Racing along the drought-stricken plains in a stolen red stagecoach, they encounter monsters more wicked than witches lurking along the dusty trail. But the crew is determined to get that bounty, or die trying. Written with the devilish cadence of Stephen Graham Jones and the pulse-pounding brutality of Nick Cutter, Red Rabbit is a supernatural adventure of luck and misfortune.
Vivian Parry likes the dark. A former actress, she now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them, with words sharper than a knife. Angling for a promotion, Vivian reluctantly agrees to give an interview in which the conversation, with a stranger who seems to know her work, reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. When her interviewer disappears soon thereafter, she learns from his devastated fiancé that Vivian was the last person to have seen him alive. When the police refuse to investigate, Vivian assumes the role of amateur detective. . As she nears the final act of this investigative ruse, she finds that the boundaries between theater and the real world are more tenuous and more dangerous than even she could have believed. Gripping, propulsive, and shot through with menace and dark glamour, HERE IN THE DARK takes us behind the scenes of New York theater, lifting the curtain on the lies we tell ourselves and each other.